Breast cancer does not discriminate, and with over 3,000 New Zealanders diagnosed each year, many of you will not necessarily fit the ‘typical profile’ of an older female breast cancer patient. If you are young, Māori, Pasifika, male, or LGBTQI+, some of your support needs may differ from the mainstream.
These pages give information and advice to help you.
In 2004, twelve of this country’s breast cancer-related groups met for the first time to discuss ways to improve breast cancer survival rates in New Zealand.
BCAC was formed following this historic meeting with the mandate to work to provide a unified evidence-based voice to ensure that world-class detection, treatment and care is accessible to all women with breast cancer in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Since then BCAC has grown. Its initial membership of 12 breast cancer groups now stands at 32 groups around New Zealand and around 50 individual members. You can find out more about our members and the services they offer on this site.
Since its inception, BCAC has achieved much for women with breast cancer. Among other things, we have:
We welcome membership applications from breast cancer-related groups and individuals with an interest in supporting our work. Email us if you'd like to join BCAC.
The final TriWoman Series is being held on April 9, 2011 at Pt Chevalier. Give it a go and you'll be supporting BCAC member group, the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation (NZBCF).
BreastScreen Aotearoa is the free national breast screening programme for women aged between 45 and 69.
You can have a free screening mammogram every two years through BreastScreen Aotearoa if you meet the following requirements:
If you have symptoms of breast cancer, all your screening and diagnostic tests will be organised by your specialist.
The benefits of joining the BreastScreen Aotearoa programme are many. They include:
If you have had a mammogram with BreastScreen Aotearoa before, you will get a letter inviting you for another mammogram with the programme. You can also make an appointment by ringing 0800 270 200. You should also ring this number if you have changed your address since your last mammogram.
All other women aged 45 to 69 who do not have breast symptoms can register for the programme by ringing 0800 270 200 or you can register online.
Mobile screening units also travel around the country. View the mobile screening unit schedule on-line, or phone BreastScreen Aotearoa on 0800 270 200 for more details.
Women who live in rural and provincial areas may have to travel for assessment and treatment to ensure they have access to high quality services. If you have a Community Services Card travel and accommodation will be paid to a set level.
Standard recommendations following a breast cancer diagnosis include annual mammography, clinical examination and treatment review through your GP or hospital clinic. District Health Boards are funded to provide this diagnostic mammography which is not part of BreastScreen Aotearoa.
If you wish, you may re-enrol for two yearly screening with BreastScreen Aotearoa five years after your breast cancer diagnosis, if you are still aged between 45 to 69 years.
You may also be advised by your doctor to continue having a mammogram on the alternate years at the hospital. Please consult with your healthcare professional for more information on breast screening after cancer.
On this page you can read about the experiences of other women who have had breast cancer. Feel free to submit your own story to provide hope and inspiration for other women.
On this page you'll find older BCAC news articles and press releases. If you're looking for something specific, please use the search function.
A diagnosis of breast cancer is a life-changing moment for more than 3000 New Zealand women every year.
If you have just been diagnosed, you will be on an emotional roller coaster and you're probably feeling quite overwhelmed.
We hope we can help - by helping you to understand breast cancer and providing you with information that will assist you to make the best decisions about your treatment and care. Below you'll find some tips on coping with a new diagnosis.
We would encourage you to order one of our Step by Step resource kits - they're free for every newly diagnosed woman in New Zealand. Each pack contains an information booklet about breast cancer, a diary to keep track of your medical treatment and a journal to record your thoughts and feelings.
Find out more about:
A diagnosis of breast cancer can throw you off course. But dealing with a diagnosis is easier when you feel empowered, informed and in charge. Knowing what you are dealing with can help to keep your emotions in check.
Below you’ll find some ways to help keep you on an “even keel”.
The information contained in each pack will help you to understand your diagnosis, empower you to ask questions of your medical team and help you to make informed choices about your treatment options.
Step by Step offers practical tools and advice to help organise and restore some control over lives that have been turned upside-down by a diagnosis of breast cancer.
The three components of Step by Step are:
Step by Step is free for everyone newly diagnosed with breast cancer. You can order your copy of Step by Step here.
Read a copy of the Step by Step information book here.
If you have received a Step by Step pack and would like to send us your feedback please fill out this form here.
For more information, if you've just been newly diagnosed, check out the following:
BCAC's web pages on treatment options
BCAC's web pages on Support
the informative Australian site www.canceraustralia.gov.au
the American site www.breastcancer.org
Unfortunately, side effects are part-and-parcel of any treatment for breast cancer. Be sure to tell your medical team about any side-effects you experience because there are often steps that can be taken to dramatically reduce the impact of these.
Below are some of the more common side-effects associated with breast cancer surgery and some tips on how to deal with them.
These symptoms will disappear over time.
Below are some precautions you can take:
If lymphoedema does develop, it can be managed through:
Therapy for lymphoedema prevention and treatment is highly specialised. Always check first to ensure a therapist is appropriately qualified. Your local branch of the New Zealand Cancer Society should be able to put you in touch with a therapist in your area.
For more information on Lymphoedema, see our lymphoedema page.
If you’ve had a mastectomy you will probably have spent one to three days in hospital. If you have had breast reconstruction or complications, your hospital stay is likely to be longer.
Waking up from a general anaesthetic, you are likely to feel groggy and possibly confused, but this soon wears off.
You will usually have some numbness in the chest, armpit or upper arm area. This may be the result of reactive swelling in the surrounding tissue putting pressure on the nerves or nerve damage during surgery. You may also feel some odd sensations in these areas – burning, tingling, itching etc. Tell your doctor about any side effects of surgery.
The chest and arm area may be swollen. This is usually relatively minor but larger collections of fluid, called seromas, are not uncommon, especially in the armpit or under the mastectomy scar.
You may also have drain tubes in your chest to help clear the wound site of excess blood and lymph fluid. Some women are sent home with these drains still in place and will have to manage changing collection bottles and keeping tubes clean. Your breast care nurse will give you information on this.
It’s important to take it easy in the days and weeks after surgery. Try to avoid any heavy lifting, and some household chores like vacuuming and hanging out the washing.
Try to move around as much as you feel able. Gentle exercise, such as walking, is good for recovery. You will probably be given some arm exercises by your surgeon or breast care nurse to help you regain mobility in your affected arm. Make sure you do these to keep your arm moving freely.
You should be able to resume your normal activities within a few weeks of a mastectomy.
You may like to check out these exercise programmes, specifically designed and run for women who have experienced breast cancer:
You may also like to have a look at our pages on the side-effects of surgery and our pages on support to deal with the physical changes breast cancer treatment brings.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) does not support the use of thermography as a breast cancer screening or diagnostic tool as we believe there is insufficient evidence of its effectiveness. We continue to recommend screening and diagnostic mammograms for the early detection and treatment of breast cancer in New Zealand.
The following detailed information on thermography was presented in the recent position statement jointly written by New Zealand’s National Screening Unit (NSU), the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand, entitled ‘The use of thermography as a breast cancer screening or diagnostic tool’.
Clinical thermography is the recording of heat distribution in order to form an image (a thermogram) of the temperature distribution on the surface of the body. Thermography has been used in medicine since the 1960s and has been promoted as a tool in the early detection of breast cancer. Whilst not well understood, the underlying mechanisms for the raised temperature of a breast cancer include increased tumour metabolism and elevated blood flow. (ref. note 1)
The detection of cancer using thermography is based on differences in temperature distribution compared with the other breast. Thermography has been promoted as particularly useful in the detection of abnormalities in women aged 30–50 years, women with small breasts and women with breast implants.
Thermography was used and studied in the 1960s and 1970s, with up to 3,000 thermography clinics operating in the US at that time (ref. note 1). Two important trials in this period involved thermography (ref. note 1).
The first (ref. note 2) compared the use of thermography, an early form of mammography (xeromammography) and clinical examination as screening tools in a clinical trial involving 16,000 women. Thermography’s sensitivity and specificity were 39% and 82% respectively, compared with xeromammography’s 78% sensitivity and 98% specificity. In a separate trial, the Breast Cancer Detection Demonstration Project (BCDDP) planned to compare thermography, mammography and clinical examination, but dropped thermography early in the project due to a high false positive rate and low sensitivity (ref. note 3).
Following these trials, thermography was largely abandoned, bud technological advances in recent years have led to renewed interest in the technology (ref. note 1).
Thermography is currently being marketed to women and general practitioners in New Zealand. The National Screening Unit, the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand have been concerned about the use of thermography as a tool in the screening and diagnosis of breast cancer, since women who undergo thermography may delay visiting their doctor with a significant symptom, or attending for screening mammography, if they believe that thermography is an adequate replacement for a doctor visit or a mammogram.
Thermography has been promoted in New Zealand as both a breast screening and diagnostic tool. Screening and diagnostic tools serve different functions and adhere to different standards.
Women are invited to participate in screening on the understanding that, overall, participating in screening will, when all the risks and benefits are considered, be beneficial to them. This is in line with international minimum standards for screening. It is vital that any new screening test is assessed through well-conducted medical research – ideally randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or meta-analyses of RCTs (ref notes 4-6).
The role of a diagnostic test is to evaluate abnormalities that have been detected either clinically or by screening. To be clinically efficacious, a diagnostic test must allow a confident characterisation of the nature of a lesion and be shown to alter patient management for the better (ref note 7).
In December 2003 the National Screening Unit commissioned a systematic review of the international literature on the effectiveness of thermography for population screening and diagnostic testing of breast cancer. This review was conducted by the New Zealand Technology Assessment Clearing House for Health Outcomes and Health Technology Assessment (NZHTA) – a highly respected and impartial unit of the University of Otago – using a rigorous methodology. The review was completed in July 2004.
NZHTA reviewed studies evaluating the use of infrared thermography as an adjunctive or stand-alone tool for the population screening of breast cancer and the role of infrared thermography as an adjunctive tool for the diagnosis of breast cancer.
The review established that there were no studies that evaluated the effectiveness of the infrared technology devices that are currently available in New Zealand. In addition, there were few studies that evaluated comparable infrared technologies or technologies that may become available to New Zealand. This was despite using a systematic approach, which included a comprehensive search strategy that identified 1,154 abstracts.
The review found that much of the recent literature on infrared thermography is in the form of narrative review, discussion or opinion articles. Most of the published study reports on infrared thermography refer to studies of infrared devices that are outdated or no longer available, or non-infrared methods of thermography. No studies of this technology have been conducted in New Zealand.
NZHTA concluded that the evidence that is currently available does not provide enough support for the role of infrared thermography for either population screening or adjuvant diagnostic testing of breast cancer. The NZHTA conclusions are consistent with recommendations of key professional groups. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists Breast Imaging Reference Group does not recommend the use of thermography for the early detection of breast cancer. (ref note 8) Similarly, the American Medical Association states that the use of thermography for diagnostic purposes cannot be recommended. (ref note 9) Thermography is not used in either the United Kingdom or Australian breast cancer screening programmes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer states that “…the sensitivity and specificity of thermography are poor, and its application to screening is unlikely.” (ref note 6).
BCAC agrees with and supports the conclusion reached by the National Screening Unit, the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of thermography as a breast cancer screening tool or breast cancer diagnostic tool.
If any health providers are offering thermography to women, it is vital that women are fully informed of the potential harms of thermography, including the likelihood of false positive results and false negative results, and typical annual costs. This information should include an acknowledgement of the lack of proof of efficacy and effectiveness of thermography as a screening and diagnostic tool.
The Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand has developed a detailed fact sheet that explains the differences between Mammography and Breast Thermography called Mammography and Breast Thermography in New Zealand Today.
You can view a copy of the position statement we refer to here.
1. Nass SJ, Henderson C, Lashof JC. Mammography and beyond: developing technologies for the early detection of breast cancer: Institute of Medicine and Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council, 2001.
2. Feig SA, Shaber GS, Schwartz GF, Patchefsky A, Libshitz HI, Edeiken J, et al. Thermography, mammography, and clinical examination in breast cancer screening. Radiology 1977;122(1):23-127.
3. Moskowitz M. Thermography as a risk indicator of breast cancer. Results of a study and a review of the recent literature. Journal of Reproductive Medicine 1985;30(6):451-459.
4. National Health Committee. Screening to improve health in New Zealand: Criteria to assess screening programmes. Wellington: National Health Committee, 2003.
5. Muir Gray JA. Evidence-based Healthcare. 1st ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1997.
6. International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Breast Cancer Screening. 1st ed. Lyon, France: IARC Press, 2002.
7. Orel SG, Troupin RH. Nonmammographic imaging of the breast: Current issues and future prospects. Seminars in Roentgenology 1993;28:231-241.
8. Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists Breast Imaging Reference Group policy on the use of thermography to detect breast cancer 2001.
